July 27, 2022
The Almost Daily will be on Summer Vacation until August 8th. But fear not! You will receive a devotional each Monday through Friday from the excellent Mockingbird Devotional entitled Daily Grace. Enjoy! - Paul Walker
Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the LORD guards the city, the guard keeps watch in vain. It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives sleep to his beloved. (Psalm 127:1-2)
I functionally do not believe the basic notion of this passage. In the abstract, I may think I like it. God puts emphasis on rest rather than activity or productivity. But in practice?
I saw the extent of my delusion on a recent vacation. I love vacation. I love the idea of leisure, of pleasurably doing nothing. In reality, though, I don’t know how to relax. I’m constantly trying to find ways to do nothing well, to do nothing productively. I want to read a bunch of books, listen to the right podcasts, have meaningful conversations with long-estranged friends. And of course I want to fit in some long-overdue—but pleasurable—exercise. Who doesn’t?
Two days in, I was on course for a perfect, pleasurable—and yes, productive!—getaway. I had three books open and a sandy pair of running shoes drying on the lanai from my first two morning jogs on the beach. Little did I know that a third run would never happen. I hadn’t run two consecutive days in ten years, and so I woke up on Morning 3 with a strained Achilles and an ankle the size of a dinosaur egg. For all intents and purposes, my vacation was grounded. I was literally beached, forced to just sit there.
I’m realizing that while I say I believe in grace, there’s always the caveat that I must earn it. This makes me a functional Pelagian, someone who believes that, while God may grant grace to his beloved, that grace is merited only after 16 hours of “working hard for the money.” What is your caveat?
Thankfully, running yourself into the ground leads you to...the ground. That’s inertia. And when you’re grounded—forced to rest your swollen body and your bruised ego—God’s blessed time extends out like the horizon in a Corona commercial, and your eyes start to see things differently. What once was a prize to be earned becomes a gift already given.
[Ethan Richardson, Daily Grace - Mockingbird Devotional Vol. 2]
